Ask Paul: The Basics of Rock Guitar in Five Songs

I began to seriously play guitar at the impressionable age of 11 (It would have been earlier if my parents hadn’t discouraged me) by receiving an acoustic and some lessons. Two years later, I had my first electric guitar and joined a band. I haven’t stopped consistently playing live since.

When I started, my intentions of playing guitar were pure; I was perfectly content to be in the background, in the shadows of stage right, as the foundational rhythm guitar player. The Brad Whitford, The Malcolm Young — they were all I strived to be.

But as anyone will tell you after playing in many bands, things change, and you either evolve or be eaten alive. So after the lead guitar player in my first band departed, I was told, “Hey man, you’re the lead guitar player now.”

I was terrified. This was not my chosen path, up front and sharing all the glory with the lead singer. No thanks. But you know what? I rose to the challenge.

So with that, I learned to swim rather than sink, and these are five of the many songs I was playing at the time that I believe carved out the lead player I am today. Even though these songs will teach all you’ll need to know about rock playing, with barre chords, chugging, single-note riffing, double-stops and arpeggios, they also contain all the rudimentary moves that bridge the gap from being just another rock guitar player to being a lead guitar player — and I’ll tell you why:

01." Iron Man" – Black Sabbath

Many of you will say, “Bro! What about "Smoke On The Water"?” To which I will respond, “Sure, the riff is easy, but try playing the solo if you’ve never soloed before,” which is why “Iron Man” is a better starting point. The riff is essentially the same plodding riff as "SOTW," but it has so much more going on.

Outside of the main riff, guitarist Tony Iommi does a break in the middle that was easy to learn and got my fingers used to moving quickly.

The box pattern of the break also revealed how I could connect those notes all along the neck and helped me see how Iommi constructed the solo using that little break as a launch pad for his very measured solo, which is perfect for the overall feel of the song.

"Time" - Pink Floyd: its the first real solo I ever sat and learned by ear that I was proud of. The song also teaches how to play in cooperation with a keyboard player.

"Monday Morning" - Fleetwood Mac: this was one of the first songs I ever learned as a teenager. It really taught me to listen to the drums and bass to improve my sense of rhythm and figure out where my sonic space was, as well as having a very melodic yet manageable solo.

"I Want You To Want Me" - Cheap Trick: this song has lot of cool things going for it like a firm bluesy main rhythmic chug and lots of opportunity add your own little flourishes before and after the very cool power-blues solo!

"You Shook Me All Night Long" - AC/DC: its got it all if you want to learn rock guitar...great riffs, great chorus, and one of the coolest bluesy solos even a young guitar player can get down.

"Back on The Chain Gang" - The Pretenders: this was the first song I learned where I realized you can have a really great guitar song without a flashy solo. Also it teaches you a lot of chording far down the neck outside the cowboy zone.

1) Purple Haze - learning the solo was intriguing because it sounded so "out there" vs. all of the pentatonic stuff I was playing.
2) Crazy Train - the first technically challenging solo I ever learned
3) Pride and Joy - learning the shuffle rhythm!
4) Sweet Home Alabama - where I discovered that there was also a MAJOR pentatonic scale
5) Crossroads - I probably improved my improvisational chops a thousand-fold by jamming through the two solo sections in this song countless times

Good list. When I teach I call them 'Songs Every Guitar Player Needs To Know'.
1. Whole Lotta Love, great for a repeating figure and a combo of palm and finger muting.
2. Back In Black, introducing chord movement, short riffs and the pentatonic scale.
3. Day Tripper, the ultimate riff song, its sounds as fresh today as it did in 1965.
4. Paranoid, short riffs, fast chugging and quick chord changes, and it too still sounds fresh.
5. Sweet Home Alabama, easy to learn, lots of playing off the chords and easy to sing.
6. La Grange, syncopated rhythm, pentatonic scale, dynamics and pinch harmonics.
7. Johnny Be Goode, double stops and the rock and roll rhythm.
8. Enter Sandman, a good way to teach string skipping, dynamics, altering riffs and how to employ a wah pedal.
9. Rumble, how to play with attitude and be cool.